Splish Splash Splatter

Monday, April 4, 2016

This was a fun project to do with my 4th Graders incorporating 2-D & 3-D art along with portraits. To begin the lesson, we reviewed what we know about the difference between 2-D and 3-D art and compared and contrasted the two. Next, I gave the students white tempera paint to paint their clouds on their blue paper. While that was drying, students drew the basket and worked on making their balloons. I demonstrated how to fold a small section of the paper strip at the end for gluing purposes and how to bend it to make an arc and glue the other side. Make sure to add lots and lots of paper strips so the balloons look full with no empty space showing. Last, the students drew a small portrait of themselves in the basket. I saved this step for the very end because even if they ran out of time for their person, their artwork would still look complete. I also know that if we would have drawn the person first, they would not have had time to finish their project.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Words cannot express my love for Dr. Seuss and his imaginative books and illustrations! In the art room, using his books is the perfect way to connect art and literature! I did this project with my Kindergarteners last week in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. We read the book 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish together and came up with all kinds of rhyming words of our very own!

To begin the art project, students were given a white 12x18" paper and painted their stripes across from the left to the right. While that was drying, we drew our fish on each color of 6x9" paper and cut them out. Lastly, we glued the fish on the striped paper and displayed them next to our library!

Monday, February 8, 2016

For Black History Month, I wanted to do a portrait drawing lesson showing value scale. Last week, the students were given one of 6 famous African Americans and read a short biography about their person. To begin the lesson, we made value scales and practiced shading with pencil. Next, students practiced drawing their person's portrait on a scrap piece of paper. My main goal was for students to draw their person on their tie-dye paper (which we made in a previous class) and use sharpies and pencils to add the value. However, I could see that this particular skill was far too advanced for 5th and 6th graders. I quickly realized that drawing value portraits was too abstract of a concept for my students because they were instructed to look for the shapes that the highlights and shadows made on their faces. Most students got so discouraged that they stopped drawing altogether. I had a week to devise another plan before I totally scrapped this project. So, I came up with the idea of drawing on transparencies and painting the shapes the shadows and highlights made by tracing them right on the transparencies. I feel this was the perfect accommodation for my students in learning about value scales and realistic portrait drawings. In the future, I will start with this technique and develop another lesson to follow this one where students can create a grid drawing and paint the value scales on their own. We will be displaying these striking portrait paintings at our annual Black History Program!

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

This is a great art project to go along with the Ukrainian folktale, The Mitten by Jan Brett. We read the story together and discussed why the story is considered a folktale and what happened in the story that is unrealistic. Students were give blue paper and white colored pencils to fill their paper with snowflakes of different sizes and varieties. Next, students traced their hands in the shape of a mitten and added lines, shapes, and colors. Lastly, for some fun detail we added a yarn string and a giant die-cut snowflake and some glitter!

Mrs. Keller

About Me

I have been teaching elementary school art for the past nine years and I LOVE what I do! I am a teacher who creates more messes than I can clean, thinks that glitter makes everything look better, and believes that art can bring people of all cultures together.